Congressman Has Painting of Statue of Liberty Wearing a Hijab In His Office

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA) has a painting of the Statue of Liberty wearing a Muslim hijab hanging in his office, and despite protests from constituents, vows to keep it.

The painting was created by a high school student as part of the Congressional Art Competition.

An activist group known as We The People Rising has written a letter to Correa requesting that he take the painting down, calling the Statue of Liberty’s link to any one religion “inaccurate, unprofessional and offensive.”

The artist has their own right to paint whatever they want, and express things in any manner they please. They have that freedom in this country, mainly because we have Constitutional law and not Sharia law.

However, you can’t for one second believe that had a student painted the Statue of Liberty wearing a cross, that the picture would be hanging in a government official’s office.

CAIR and separation of church and state organizations would be up in arms, demanding the painting be taken down.

Despite opposition to the hijab-clad Statue of Liberty painting, Correa is standing by it.

But Correa said that he will not be taking down the painting. In an interview Tuesday morning with The Washington Post, Correa said the painting is an individual artist’s expression and is only hanging on the office wall because it was chosen as a finalist for the congressional competition. Policing art, and “what is proper, what is not,” he said, would violate freedom of speech laws and lead to a “very dangerous slippery slope.”

“My thoughts were, here’s probably a young Muslim lady who is trying very hard to be part of America, who is trying very hard to show people that she is an American, given the context that is going on around us in our country,” Correa said, speaking by phone from Jerusalem. “By me taking it down I’m acknowledging that she did something wrong.”

No, you’re acknowledging that a congressman’s office is an inappropriate venue for such a painting. Just as it was inappropriate to hang a painting of police officers depicted as pigs in the US Capitol building. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression, as both paintings have a right to exist in some location. Just not a government building.

The Statue of Liberty in a hijab projects the exact opposite of what it is meant to project – liberty and freedom. How a sitting Congressman does not recognize that is a mystery.

Do you support or oppose this Congressman having a painting of the Statue of Liberty wearing a hijab in his office? Share your thoughts below!

About the AuthorRusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss is a freelance journalist focusing on the conservative movement and its political agenda. He has been writing conservatively charged articles for several years in the upstate New York area, and his writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, American Thinker, FoxNews.com, Big Government, the Times Union, and the Troy Record. He is also Editor of one of the top conservative blogs of 2012, the Mental Recession.

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